SF just doesn’t seem to know when to quit.  There is yet another hearing on this again later this month.  You can read the newest bills and see the schedule here: http://www.malegislature.gov/Events/EventDetail?eventId=355&eventDataSource=Hearings

I’d like to thank our wonderful DMF staff, especially director Diodati, in advance, for continuing to issue striper permits to anyone and everyone who wants one, to the point where this gamefish bill is almost an annual event to look forward to. I mean with catch shares and the NMFS refusing to recognize fluke and black sea bass as being rebuilt and the MW boats killing the last of the river herring out there, we don’t have much to be concerned with, so I for one am always just so happy to go piss on yet another brush fire.

Stripers Forever is really getting desperate, lobbying legislator after legislator, farther and farther from the coast.  All democrats too, very telling that they have sought the sponsorship of the elitist left wing democrats.  Maybe the dummy’s sponsoring these bills, don’t know why Matt Patrick a former Ma. legislator, isn’t in office anymore?  Funny stuff.

Whats not funny, is that the Ma DMF let this fishery get so out of control, that it became the poster-child for an abused public resource.  Think I’m kidding?  Have a listen to a Ma. fisheries commission a few years back at which this very subject was discussed….You’ll hear Paul Diodati, director Ma DMF, explaining about an article that had been published in Fly Rod and Reel Magazine…have a listen:

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“for guys who want to justify a very expensive hobby to their wives”. Lovely. True though.
The overwhelming majority of the striper fishermen, are guys who aren’t actually commercial fishermen. Most of them have real jobs, not just guys who are scraping together enough to keep going types, but firemen, cops, lawyers, teachers, plumbers etc., all out there for a few short weeks each summer, playing fisherman. If we all painted our boats pink and purple and sang while we fished, the whole thing could be a musical comedy…Oh my.

Just change the guns to fishing poles and that’d be about right…

This fishery is way overdue for a facelift. The director doesn’t want to deal with all the negative publicity that would ensue though, so what are we to do? He told me this once, after a commission meeting, when I asked him why he wouldn’t consider limiting entry and taking steps to legitimize the fishery?

I’m going to the hearings. I’m going to speak and I’m going to wait until the end, because no one is going to like what I have to say, not the state, not stripers forever and not the other fishermen.

A couple of post’s below, there is a bit about a NEFMC meeting I recently attended in Hyannis.  There ws a story in the Cape Cod Times the following day about this meeting -  Cape fishermen cry foul on quotas In which the picture the Times used, features a fisherman named Phil Michaud Jr.. I spoke very briefly at the meeting, I limited my comment at the time as I explained in my post below, because I had only found out about the meeting a day earlier and wasn’t completely up to speed, but the one thing I did have to say that was the most important, was that I didn’t think folks should be able to sit on quota, that if they didn’t use it, the quota should be returned to the common pool, of which, Mr. Michaud is part of.

Isn’t this somewhat ironic? I am supporting Mr. Michaud as a fellow fisherman, yet he doesn’t seem to feel the same way toward me, as he states in his comment to my post – The unimportance of fishing to the public
phil michaud jr says:
March 4, 2010 at 7:41 pm (Edit)

I understand some of your frustration as a hook fisherman,perhaps you could buy a dragger and join us,there’s many for sale.
I do remember some of the serious hook fishermen back in the eighties that helped massachussetts get it’s quota,there numbers have increased ten fold or more,our permit numbers have dropped.
If not for the five to ten thousand pounds our dragger and other draggers each landed weekly May thru October, what would your fishery be like?A very short season to say the least.
Today many hook fishermen benifit from the quota draggermen established why complain?

Ok, I realize that this isn’t exactly a stinging criticism, but it isn’t exactly a compliment either. He starts off saying he understands some of my frustration, but he ends telling me I oughta be happy with what I have, even though what I have is less than what he has…  Thanks brother… It’s this attitude that keeps us divided.

Rolling forward a bit…  Last spring, the issue of the disparate landing limit was finally brought to the Marine Fisheries Commission, but again to no result.  Just like in 2005, DMF director Diodati refused to let the commission vote on this in 2005, he wouldn’t even let them discuss this as a proposal.  I attended the commission meeting at the Hilton in Waltham.  As I entered the room where the meeting was held, I walked past Ed Barrett and Vito Calomo, Ed is the president of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership and Vito was the chairman of the commission, but is now the vice-chairman. As I entered, I overheard Ed say to Vito, “make sure these hook guys don’t get what they want”.  Amazing?  Ironic at least, that the president of the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership, would say this….some partnership huh?  It made little difference, what he said, or maybe it did, I don’t know, I’m an ousider to say the least in what the commssioners and the director communicate to each other outside these proceedings, so I can’t say with certainty.  The fix was apparently in though, and in my opinion had been all along. I will explain…

It seems to have started with the seemingly innocuous change to the notice sent out by the DMF, stating that the “public hearings” to be held with regard to proposed rule changes for 2011, were actually to be “public meetings“.  The difference wasn’t appreciable at the time, however I soon came to realize the ramifications, which are enormous.  Under MGL 30a sec.2;

Prior to the adoption, amendment, or repeal of any regulation as to which a public hearing is required, an agency shall hold a public hearing. Within the time specified by any law, or, if no time is specified, then at least twenty-one days prior to the date of the public hearing, the agency shall give notice of such hearing by (a) publishing notice of such hearing in such manner as is specified by any law, or, if no manner is specified, then in such newspapers, and, where appropriate, in such trade, industry or professional publications as the agency may select;

The difference is that the DMF, couldn’t hold a public hearing and then not allow the MFC to vote on the proposal, because, if it was a hearing, they’d be obligated to let them, because they proposed this at a public hearing, confusing? The intricacies are such that most everyone, myself included, didn’t see the difference, at least not until it was too late. Even the MFC was a little confused at the meeting, I’ve uploaded the ten minutes of audio relative to this, clink on the link or listen below, turn your volume all the way up, if you listen with windows media player, it might not be loud enough, so go to the enhancement settings and turn the bars on the graphic equalizer all the way up.

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Notice how one commissioner, Randy Sigler is puzzled that this is not an action item, even though it is listed as such. Diodati explains this by saying it was easier to deal with it as such… Now for the big Lie. I questioned director Diodati’s decision to not recommend this to the commission, to which he replied:

The fact that I presented a proposed regulation for public input, then didn’t recommend it as a final rule to the Commission is simply part of the rule-making process. It should demonstrate to you and anyone watching that our proposals are not a “done deal” before we go into public hearings, a common belief of some fishermen. We listen to what the public has to say and in this case, a better argument was made to leave the hook catch limit at 200 pounds rather than raising it to 300.

Which is ironic to say the least considering that he also says:

Gathering public testimony is not about seeking the majority opinion, it’s about determining the best rationale for changing a rule.

I see… He can’t even keep his story straight for two paragraphs. So, to make this more interesting, here’s what he told the commission in writing, before the meeting, why he wasn’t recommending this:

“Based on this public comment and a general lack of support for the proposal, I do not recommend an
increase in the fluke hook and line trip limit to 300 lbs. at this time.”

I see. So, even though all 60 members of CIIFA and all the members of the Dartmouth Anglers, which total over 100 persons, were in favor of this increase, he still cites a “general lack of support“? Laughable.

So, I pushed the issue a bit, mostly to bait a reaction, but I was serious too, when I wrote a new simple petition, asking that all fisheries conducted in state waters by state permitted fishermen have the same trip limits, regardless of the gear used. The response was, to say the least, incredible:

The Division and the Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission held public hearings on this same
petition last year. Comments provided at those hearings were primarily opposed to the adoption of
such regulations. In accordance with my recommendation the Commission declined to take any
action on the petition or adopt the petition’s proposed regulations.

‎

The commission rejected it?  How is this possible? How can they reject what they aren’t able to act on?  I believe the directors words were,       “no action is necessary at this time.”  So…

Why was Randy Sigler asking why they weren’t voting/acting on this?  The commission wasn’t  allowed to vote, because DMF director Diodati made sure they couldn’t.  If the meetings about the proposals had been public hearings, then they’d have to vote due to the administrative procedure, but since it was a meeting and not a hearing, no such obligation existed and it was essentially the directors call. In the end, al the rules discussed and voted on ( some were vote on..funny huh?) were all brought into effect by emergency rule and the director even tells them so much at the meeting. So, why even have a commission or meeting at all, if the director can just do what he wants though intentional manipulation of the system to meet the wants of the guys he wants to keep in favor with?

Ed Barret,  I also have issues with, for his comments to Vito, especially when he recently lent his name to a plea to the NEFMC entitled Fleet Diversity I guess that the diversity he wants only includes draggers? Or Am I missing something? It’s OK to keep the little hook guy down, but it’s not ok to keep the little groundfisherman down? A little hypocritical?

We are all fishermen. What divides us is us. We are the only ones we can point at in the end for everything. How we treat each other is more important than anything, but the guys closer to the top forget this all too often…

Sorry if I offended anyone. We are all a part of this.

February 1’st.

50º outside.

No codfish anywhere near shore.

Why?

The water is still in the 40’s almost everywhere you’d expect to catch fish, but there aren’t any fish. Nothing. Zip zero nada.

Last summer there were cod just outside the 3 mile line off Chatham, in 120′.  But, there was a lot of bait there, which is why the bass were there.  Then the MW boats came along and took care of the bait… no more fish. There should be fish all along the backside of the Cape and also in the bay….but there aren’t.

Even the winter run of fish that they’ve been enjoying the last few years off Block Island isn’t really there.

Do you remember when the hook association began in Chatham back in the 90’s?  What a great idea it was.  Keep the fishery going for the little guys, for the hook boats.   What fishery?  CCCHFA, became all gillnetters.  We all know how well gill nets and jigging get along, don’t we?

I saw what happened in the bay back in the 90’s.  After the sea bass would get scarce, I would trailer to Brant Rock every day it was fishable and every day it was I’d be done by noon, 500 pounds of scrod cod, every single day.  The last time I went up there was in 2002, I had trouble catching a fish. But, if I went out to around 90′, there were hiflyers everywhere. place looked like a pitch and putt mini golf…  Miles and miles of mesh, for 500 #’s of cod…. what a joke. The netters would keep all the big fish and throw back, dead, all the smaller ones.    It is funny (not really), when you listen to these netters at meetings or hearings gripe about limits or about lack of whatever, knowing that they were willing to keep setting miles of mesh for 500#’s, knowing they’d be killing many times what they would be allowed to keep, but they kept doing it…

I think it’s pretty funny, that there is a meeting at the statehouse at the end of the month to discuss several bills regarding making striped bass a gamefish, again.  I’ll bet you good money, I could go catch a bass somewhere on Cape Cod today from the shore….But you couldn’t go catch a codfish.   Ironic?  Hypocritical is more like it.

It’s always about the money.  CCCHFA, AKA Liars and Thieves Incorporated, couldn’t give 2 shits less about fish near the beach.  Their members, the ones with the quota, can always just lease their annual entitlement to the draggers.  Stripers Forever will tell you that they have the striper’s best interest at heart, but if you watch their pathetic video, they go on and on about how much money THEY can make by getting rid of commercial fishing for bass, not mentioning anything about how recreational fishermen’s discards are more than the entire commercial harvest and discards combined….

The real loser, are the little guys and the resource.  NEFMC isn’t going to lift a finger to make things better, why would they, the council is corrupted beyond repair….they’ll just make it look like they are doing whatever they do, in the interest of the fishery, and they’ll take their sweet time doing it…while the folks in their favor continue to cash in on the cash shares entitlement program.  2 years to figure out if we even need a cap on quota accumulation?  2 years.

I attended a meeting in Hyannis Yesterday of the NEFMC.  The purpose of this meeting was to get comments on Amendment 18 of the northeast multispecies fishery:

The New England Fishery Management Council (Council) proposes to draft regulations to manage and conserve the multispecies fishery under the authority of Section 302 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. These rules are intended to reduce the likelihood that groundfish permit holders will control excessive shares of the resource and that over-consolidation will occur within the fleet. When finalized, the rules will become part of an amendment to the Council’s Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan. In addition, the Council may prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as described in the National Environmental Policy Act to accompany the proposed amendment.
The Council identified two objectives for this amendment:
1. To consider the establishment of accumulation caps for the groundfish fishery; and
2. To consider issues associated with fleet diversity in the multispecies fishery.

I didn’t have much to say, as I only found out about this meeting one day earlier.  Some of the others attending did though, and what they said was that they couldn’t catch what wasn’t there and that the system of catch shares had already devastated the last bit of inshore fishing opportunity they had left, namely Stellwagen Bank.  They told the council that in just 2 years, the fish they have been waiting for 15 years to be able to catch were all gone, at the hands of a handful of 90′+ vessels, which had literally wiped out the area.

Sad.  We keep repeating the same mistakes, over and over and over.

Accumulation cap on quota?  DUH.  No brainer.  Too little too late?  Uh huh….

Catch shares did exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to do for the fish.  They provided the large scale vessels the opportunity to fish in places they never should have, displacing the vessels/fishermen who cannot fish farther offshore.  It furthered the divide between the haves and the have nots, it made it easier for the guys who already had made a lot of money to make more than ever and it eliminated any future opportunities for those who had not.  I will say, that it probably wasn’t the intention of the folks who came up with the catch shares plan to sweep the little guys off the playing field, maybe it was, I can’t say, but it did, clearly it did.  Now, 2 years later, they (NEFMC) realize there may be a problem and there may be a need to limit the accumulation of quota?  2 years too late?  Or, in my opinion, more like 20.

When the NMFS allowed people to own more than one vessel, allowing them to own 5 or 10 or more, that is when the problem began.  The problem they have now is made more complicated by this.  Going into the catch shares system there was already a tremendous disparity in so much as there were already people who owned a large percentage of the fishery, by default, through ownership of so many permits/vessels, coupled with the fact that the folks who owned these had been fishing them to the maximum they could be fished, therefore bringing into the new system more catch history, which translated into more quota, or annual catch entitlement, to use the present nomenclature.

Now….they think there might be a problem?

I just sat there taking this all in and realizing just how incredibly dysfunctional this council is.  We were told that this amendment would likely be 2 years in the making, 2 more years for the folks with all the quota now to keep accumulating more and in doing so, catching more and making more money, money they can use to make sure they keep what they have, regardless of what happens to the rest of us?

This is a broken system.

Just another year?

I guess that all depends on how you look at things.  Sure it really is, but what will it bring?  I’m going to get a little personal here and I may have some hate coming my way when I’m done with this post…I don’t care.

Apathy is rampant.  Apathy from all the guys I see all summer out there on the water.  They all want to go fishing, but that’s just it, they want it.  At the spring hearings last March, where there was an opportunity to put the sunner flounder or fluke limit back to equal with the trawlers as it had been before 1998, too many of these summer fishermen were against raising the fluke limit back to 300 pounds for hook fishermen, they said they couldn’t even catch 200 pounds as it was and they were concerned it would make the season shorter.  Think about that last sentence.  If “they” couldn’t catch 200 pounds now, why do they think that raising the limit, actually making the limit what it always had been, would make the season shorter?  Kind of faulty reasoning, if you ask me.  The only thing I can think, is that they know there are a handful of us out there who can and would and they are jealous?  Thing is, that all the guys against it, aren’t even fishermen.  That is a point that a few folks I know have a real issue with me about…

Unfortunately, most of the folks I know who are fishing, commercially as hook guys didn’t have permits ten years ago.  They don’t know what it was like before all this quota BS came along and to them, the different landing limits for fluke and sea bass are normal.  They’ve never known otherwise.   Irritating them further, is my attitude that none of them should have ever even been issued a permit at all.  The moment we put a state quota on any fishery, we should have made the permits limited entry.  If we had, there wouldn’t be 800+ sea bass hook permits, there’d be more like 60, especially if we limited entry to only those who had substantial landings previously.

I’ve said this before and Im sure I’ll say it again and again; back when we had no quota’s, it didn’t matter. We had room for folks who just wanted to fish “part time, or perhaps a little more exactly, without need.  But, now we do and even though the Massachusetts DMF for whatever reason doesn’t see reason to close these permits, the sheer number of these folks who do fish without necessity, have diluted the access to the point where it just isn’t viable for the rest of us who have always fished as our occupation.  Since this has gone on so long, most of us who were fishing 20 years ago, have to get income from non-fishing sources, just to survive, to which all the “part timers” now say that we are all the same. Rubbish!  We were forced into this position, not just by the DMF, but also by the apathy of these part timers toward those of us who had been there all along.  Having said this, try to see things from our, the formerly full time fishermen’s, point of view.  We aren’t the same.

I hate this.  I wish it were different, but it is what it is.  What can we do?  We have to change how we issue permits and we have to decide, as hard and as unpopular as it will be, who will be able to get a commercial permit, here in Massachusetts.  It really won’t be that awful, but feelings will be hurt.

Just look at all the brand new trucks in the parking lots of the boat ramps during fishing season.  Do you honestly think those are fishermen who are supplementing their income with land work when they can’t fish or are they guys with jobs or businesses, taking advantage of an easy and fun paycheck.  Many of these guys will tell you they couldn’t afford to fish if they couldn’t sell the fish they catch. Hmm.  How does that work?  I suppose you could argue that most drug dealers couldn’t afford to do drugs, if they didn’t sell them, no?  Go ahead, hate, I just don’t care anymore.  Those of us who have  always fished for our livings, we put up with all of you throughout the 90’s.  We put up with you being in the way and following us around, it didn’t keep us from catching what we NEEDED to.

Now though, you are.

In 1997 I wrote a letter to then director of MA DMF Phil Coates.  If only I knew then how much worse it would get and they had acted then to do something…..

11/9/97

John Rice

75 Grove St.
Cotuit Ma.02635

To:

Philip Coates
Ma. D.M.F.

100 Cambridge St.
Boston Ma. 02202

Dear Phil,

I am Writing to you about my concerns for the future of
commercial fishing in our state. I am especially
concerned about what is going to happen next year with
scup and sea bass.

I am a hook and line fisher, I also catch menhaden for
bait shops. I thought it would be good say this so you
will know what my interest in fishing is. I am a legiti-
mate fisherman. I say legitimate in so much as I pay my
taxes and depend on fishing to make my living.

My concern is this; if scup and sea bass aren’t able
to be fished next year like they always have in the past
then there is going to be additional pressure put on
other inshore fisheries here in Ma. The other fisheries
I feel that will get the most new pressure will be
striped bass and fluke. This will be a big problem,
especially for the striped bass fishery.

The striped bass fishery is dominated by participants
who, for the lack of a better term are “illegitimate”.
This is and was best evidenced by what went on at a
meeting at the Ma. Maritime Academy a couple of years
ago. The meeting was about stripers, scup, fluke, and
tautog. The features of the striped bass portion were
new recreational and commercial size limits and 3 plans
for extending the 1997 commercial season. I am sure you
remember the meeting. The majority of the people in
attendance were against the plan that would have
(theoretically) kept the season open the longest, this
was closing the fishery on the weekends. I thought that

was pretty interesting. After the discussion on stripers
was over the was an intermission. At the beginning of
the meeting the hall was standing room only. When the
meeting reconvened there were only about 50 people left.
I guess those who left didn’t have any interest in the
other fisheries. This could only be for one of two
reasons. #1, they weren’t commercial fishermen
(i.e. recreational) or they weren’t legitimate  commercial fishermen,
I don’t know any fishermen who only fish for striped bass.

Back when we had a much smaller annual quota and
a daily bag limit of 100 lbs. + 1 fish, the quota
wouldn’t get full and the season would run from June
through October 1. Now we have a quota of almost 800,000
lbs. and the season doesn’t last 40 days. Next year if
Ma. fishermen who usually fish for scup and sea bass have
to fish for striped bass this season will be even
shorter.

The shortened season however is just one problem.
The fact that the fluke and bass seasons are to some
extent concurrent is another. Fluke usually begins
around the end of June and runs until mid August. It
would be nearly impossible to fish both at the same time.

What I am getting around to here is this; there is
enough pressure on the small inshore fishermen of
Ma. as it is with the decline of our inshore fish
stocks and the federal governments unwillingness to
address the true underlying cause, offshore winter
small mesh trawling. The state can help alleviate
some pressure by weeding out the illegitimate
fishermen, not just in striper fishing, but all the
fisheries. The other fisheries have their share of
illegitimate” fishers, but not like the bass fishery,
which why I focused on it. The state, perhaps
inadvertently helped the lobster, scup and sea bass
fishers when it put a moratorium on the potting permits,
I know that the moratoriums were really to help protect
the fish stocks, but they did also help the fishermen
who already held those permits. I feel that now something
must be done to help the hook and line fishers here in
Ma.

Other states have taken such measures, in Florida
for example you have to show proof of income from
fishing before they will issue you a permit. Why
couldn’t Ma. do something similar. You know that place
on the back of our permit application that you have to
sign swearing that all taxes due on fishing income has
been paid? I think that the D.M.F. needs to collaborate
with the D.O. R. and link permits to licenses, I’m sure
the results would be very interesting.

If we are going to have to start living with more
quotas and season closures in this state, then the
legitimate fishers in this state shouldn’t have to share
the fisheries with people who have no business being
involved with them. You are one of the people that can
help this situation a great deal, as the director of
the D.M.F .. I don’t have the answers to fix all the
problems of the fishermen of Ma., but I know shutting
off the illegitimate fishers would certainly help.

I truly hope that you will consider what I have said
and will discuss these thing with the other higher-ups
at the D.M.F .. I would like very much to hear any
comments you might have in regards to this letter.

Sincerely,
John Rice

Before there was a species specific permit for black sea bass in Massachusetts, there were hardly any hook fishermen who specialized in black sea bass. In the spring there were a few guys who targeted them, but mostly they were a bycatch of the scup fishery for the hook guys. It was the fall that was the best for me, early in September as soon as the water began to cool much at all, I’d start catching them and I caught a lot, I averaged 400 pounds a day, mostly jumbos and large and I saw prices as high as $6.30 for them. 1 fish dealer couldn’t believe I was actually hooking that many fish a day, but I was. I had a step-son who I kept out of school some days, we’d really pound the fish those days, our best day was over 900 pounds. There was no season then, no quota, just a 2000 pound daily limit, so it was go go go until the fish just weren’t there. In the fall, there were a few potters from the Vineyard out there and a couple more from the Cape, but not many, since most of the sea bass potters were also lobstermen and they were mostly over in Cape Cod Bay busy with that.

The springs in the 90’s were incredible, first the squid would show up around May 1’st and we’d have them for about 2 weeks. Then the scup would come, followed quickly by the sea bass. Nantucket sound was quite a circus. There’d be dozens of Portuguese handliners, potters, draggers, private recreational, charter and party boats all out there at the same time. The scup fleet was huge, on nice days there would be 200+ boats in a pack and there was a lot of fish.
There wasn’t a limit for scup commercially, there wasn’t even a permit for the either, the rec limit was 50 per person, with no boat limit. There were a lot of folks from Canada, Greeks, who came down to catch them. It was amazing, seeing all those boats out there every day.

Around 2000, things changed. suddenly we had quotas for scup and sea bass and then we required permits for each too, though these permits were issued without qualification, even though we were now being limited in how much we could catch, the Ma. DMF didn’t see the need to limit how many folks could catch them. The they made an even more counterintuitive move, they allowed the transfer of the sea bass trapping permits, going back on their word from when they had made them limited entry, that they would never be transferable. Suddenly there was a lot of new effort in the sea bass fishery, latent permits were now being used and in the spring the area between Hyannis and Mashpee was a dangerous place to run a boat, there were so many buoys out there you could easily run one over if you didn’t pay attention. The sea bass quickly became scarce in close to the beach, with al that gear in the water, what was worse, once there were reduced trip limits , 500#/day, the potters still had 200 traps in and the fish would die in the traps, too many fish would go into a trap and since the potters only needed 500 pounds, they wouldn’t pull enough gear fast enough. It’s still that way, the black sea bass trap fishery in the spring is an abominable shame.

This past year was far and away the worse year we’ve ever seen for fisheries management here in Massachusetts for sea bass. We had a pitifully low quota, yet the potters still put out too much gear and fish died in the traps, again. There is no equity between the hookers and the potters, the potters, many of whom have ZERO HISTORY in the fishery before there were quotas because they are buy ins, get the majority of the access, something I loathe the DMF for. I have history and landings before any of the buy ins had permits, yet I get stuck with all the hookers, most of whom are just part time guys or guys who never fished for them before there was a permit for them. Amazing.

After years of my trying, I finally got the DMF finally to propose to make the summer flounder limit the same for hookers and draggers, but the draggers cried foul and a lot of the hook guys said they were against raising the hook limit, because they felt it would shorten the season. Guess what? They almost didn’t fill the quota this year. Hooking for fluke pretty much ends around the 1’st of September, so even though the season went until almost November this year, it really didn’t do the hookers any good, since they couldn’t catch them anyway….again the majority of the fluke hookers are part timers or retirees, most of them never got the 300#’s back when the limits where the same anyway, so why would it matter to them if those of us who did, could again? Jealousy?

F’ them. I want my fishing back. I want my job back. I want my life back. I’m sick to death of all of those freakin guys in their brand new boats and their brand new trucks, who all have good land incomes, having a say in my f’ng life. Between them and the retarded DMF and the greedy greedy trappers and draggers, you can all go to hell!

Again, the brilliant leadership of Diodati and Mckiernan has left us in an awkward situation. Perhaps if they had let the hook guys take 300 pounds a day like the draggers, we might not be in this mess…
Thanks morons.

October 20, 2011
MarineFisheries Advisory

COMMERCIAL SCUP AND FLUKE NO FISHING DAYS LIFTED
EFFECTIVE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2011

As of October 19, 2011 dealer reports indicate the Commonwealth has landed 71% of the 1,285,325 pound commercial summer (May – October) scup quota and 94% of its 1,156,952 pound commercial Period II (June 1 – Quota) fluke quota. To improve the probability of landing the remainder of these available seasonal fishery quotas, the Division of Marine Fisheries (MarineFisheries) is eliminating no fishing days (Fridays and Saturdays) in the commercial scup and fluke fisheries.

Recently, there was a meeting held by a group called MASS COMMERCIAL BASS, in Chatham. This meeting was held at CCCHFA headquarters, who allowed this group the use of their facility. It is important to note that the MCB, is not “affiliated” with CCCHFA, not yet at least, even though it may appear as if they were. The focus of this meeting was to discuss ways to potentially enhance profits by the groups members and to stay off the threat of a ban on the sale of stripers here in Massachusetts, both laudable objectives. The group has decided to hire a lobbyist to fight fire with fire, in the cold war between the commercial bass fishermen of MA., and the ME. based group Stripers Forever, also a laudable idea.

I will now explain why I have an issue with this group and I do have issues with them.

In any cold war, it is paramount to operate in secrecy up until the point where you are ready to execute your plan in pursuit of the objective, which is of course; to win. How do you expect to attain victory if you operate in a manner which allows your opponent to know what you are going to do, before you even do it? When you hold meetings in a semi-public venue, allowing anyone and everyone who wants to attend, it provides your opponent with all you intend, before you are even able to initiate it. What disturbs me to the point of exasperation, is that the would be leader of this group is a well spoken fellow with an Ivy League education, yet he seems to lack the wherewithal to understand that the actions of this group are counter-intuitive to the goal of keeping the striped bass fishery open.

I am not enjoying writing this, but I felt I had to. In fact this has actually been a draft, sitting here for over a month, while I sorted out how I felt about it. I realized that left alone to continue to operate in the manner in which they have, that MCB may likely help Stripers Forever actually get commercial striper fishing closed here in Massachusetts.

Commercial fishing for striped bass has become a convoluted and (for good reason) greatly maligned activity. The majority of the permit holders are not what I or most anyone would consider commercial fishermen, yet they seem to have the greater voice in the direction of it’s management. The problem is, that for these very folks who are clamoring to keep the fishery open, not one single thing about their lives would change, nor would they be at a loss to pay their bills or continue their lives as they’ve known them, if the fishery were eliminated, and therein lies the rub.

The Massachusetts DMF director Diodati refuses to do anything about “legitimizing” this fishery, in fact he has stated that it is the DMF’s policy to keep this fishery open access, and that the majority of the participants are justifying a very expensive hobby.

I agree, that we do need to do all we can to eliminate the absurd but very real threat from groups like SF, but we need to play our hand close to our vests and we need to seriously consider how and where we discuss our plans to do this.

Give up, I have disabled your ability to post or register. If you want to register, you’ll have to email me. I know this is a lot of trouble, which is exactly why I’ve taken this measure. It’s really sad that I’ve had to resort to this, but the spammers have left me little choice.